Mickey Mantle and Red Patterson pose for this shot after
Mantle's 565-foot shot!

Red Patterson, a sportswriter on the old New York
Herald Tribune, became the Yankees publicity director in 1946. He also
served as the Yankees traveling secreatary.

It was Red Patterson who hired the late great Bob
Sheppard.

Article from Ross Newhan in 1992 about the passing of
Red Patterson.

Red Patterson Dies of Cancer

Baseball: An executive with both
the Dodgers and Angels, he was a public relations innovator.

February 11, 1992|ROSS NEWHAN
| TIMES STAFF WRITER

Arthur E. (Red) Patterson, one of baseball's most innovative public
relations officials and an executive with both the Dodgers and Angels,
died Monday of cancer. He was 83.

During a baseball career that began with the New York Yankees in 1946
and spanned 45 years, Patterson was credited with introducing
old-timers' games, yearbooks, concession souvenirs and many of the most
popular promotional events. He also was the first to pace off a home run
by Mickey Mantle and refer to it as a tape-measure homer.

Helen Patterson, his wife of 60 years, was at his bedside when he
died at St. Jude's Hospital in Fullerton. Buzzie Bavasi, who
worked with Patterson as general manager of the Dodgers and Angels, said
he never met a harder worker.

"Fifteen hours a day weren't enough for Red," Bavasi said. "I
haven't known all of the public relations people, but he had to be up
with the best of them. He started most of the programs they all seem to
use."

Said Tim Mead, public relations director of the Angels: "Red was one
of the last great baseball storytellers. He was one of the last baseball
purists, a baseball historian, to work as a club PR director. He taught
me how to recognize trends, to look beyond the obvious (in preparing
statistics and pregame media notes). And he was always positive. You had
to argue convincingly if you wanted to use a negative note or stat."

Patterson first served as vice president of public relations for the
Dodgers, then as president of the Angels.

Dodger President Peter O'Malley, who accepted a lifetime achievement
award on Patterson's behalf at Sunday night's annual dinner of the Los
Angeles-Anaheim chapter of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America, said
he was saddened by the loss of a "very special man" who provided an
"endless supply of creative ideas."

"I used to kid Red about typing his press notes with his right hand
as he drove home with his left," O'Malley said. "He loved his work,
always looked on the bright side and always had an anecdote. We were
fortunate to have him in the organization for 20 years."

Patterson was born on Feb. 1, 1909, in Long Island City, N.Y., the
son of a mill superintendent. He attended night school at New York
University while working days for the now defunct New York
Herald-Tribune. He spent 17 years with the paper, covering a variety of
sports, including baseball. He was on the road with the New York Yankees
on the day that Lou Gehrig's record streak of 2,130 games ended.

In an interview several years ago, Patterson said of that event: "We
were in Detroit, and I remember Joe McCarthy, who was the Yankee manager
then, calling and saying, 'I've got a story I think you'll be interested
in.' I went up to Joe's room and he said that Gehrig wasn't going to
play that day, that he had asked to come out of the lineup because he
felt there was something physically wrong, though no one knew what it
was yet.

"Well, the Yankees won by about 16 runs that day. They were so
inspired they would have beaten any team ever. Gehrig had taken the
lineup card to the plate before the game. Guys were crying, going up to
bat with tears running down their cheeks."

In 1945, Patterson joined the National League Service Bureau under
Ford Frick, the league president and future commissioner. Patterson was
considered a candidate to become league president when Frick stepped up,
but Patterson left the league office in 1946 to join the Yankees as the
first publicity director for a major league team.

Two years later, he staged the first old-timers' game as a means of
honoring Babe Ruth and stimulating fans who had become disinterested by
the annual dominance of the Yankees. It was during his eight years with
the Yankees that he also came up with the idea of cap day and other
promotions and became the first to publish a yearbook that was sold with
other souvenirs at the concession stands.

"Harry Stevens ran the concessions then and he didn't like the idea,"
Patterson said in the interview. "I remember him saying, 'What are you
trying to do, make Yankee Stadium into a Coney Island?' It was the same
thing when I suggested the cap day. George Weiss was the club's general
manager then and he said, 'I don't want every kid in New York running
around in a Yankee cap.' I said, 'George, what could be better? That's
the greatest ad you could have.' "

Nothing, perhaps, brought Patterson more renown nor did more to
document the strength of the young Mantle than Patterson's decision to
measure the distance of a Mantle home run that was hit against
Chuck Stobbs of the Washington Senators and carried over the back
wall at Griffith Stadium.

"Nobody had ever hit the ball out of the left side of Griffith
Stadium, so I decided to go out into the neighborhood behind the fence,"
Patterson recalled. "I found a youngster with the ball, asked him where
it had landed, and paced off that distance to the fence. We knew how far
the wall was from the plate, so we could announce that it was 565 feet.
Mickey was absolutely the strongest player I ever saw."

Patterson would apply the newly created "tape measure" to other
homers in other places, the distances often raising skeptical eyebrows
but also creating headlines and conversation, as did many of his other
contributions.

Patterson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers as their publicity director in
1954, came West with the team in 1958 and later became vice president of
public relations and promotions.

It is estimated that he made 300 speeches a year on behalf of the
club, often three a day, seven a week. His promotions, including a
Straight 'A' Night for students, were copied throughout baseball and
helped the Dodgers become baseball's attendance leaders on an almost
annual basis.

Impressed by Patterson's accomplishments and looking for ways to
reach the Angels' fans, owner Gene Autry hired Patterson as club
president in 1975. Patterson's title changed to assistant to the owner
when Bavasi was hired to oversee budget and playing player
personnel in 1977, but Patterson's promotions and programs helped the
Angels set a club attendance record of 2.5 million in 1979 and draw 2.2
million or more in every year except one since then.

He resigned briefly in 1985, believing he no longer retained any
authority, but basically remained on the payroll as a public relations
consultant. He continued to make occasional appearances on behalf of the
club until recently, and periodically wrote a baseball column for the
Anaheim Bulletin.

In addition to his wife, Patterson is survived by sons Kenneth and
Brian, daughters Janet Huie and Maureen Haskins, and 15
grandchildren. Services are pending.

"I’ve never known O’Malley to go into any situation where
he didn’t touch all the bases.” - Red PattersonDecember 18, 1957 (Rube Samuelsen, Pasadena)

"He had this dream. He wanted to build the first domed
stadium in baseball above the Long Island railroad tracks. All he wanted was
the land. He wanted a stadium that would be like a gigantic modern theater.
The Houston people copied a lot of his ideas.” -
Red Pattersonformer Dodger Vice President, Public Relations and
PromotionsNew York Post, August 10, 1979

The real story behind the tape-measure job that Mantle hit in
1953.

Mickey Mantle, Tape Measure Shot, April 17, 1953

by Harvey Frommer

Mel Allen always had a way with words. Here is his re-creation
call of the epic Mickey Mantle home run. The original call was never preserved.
Allen's recreations are easily spotted when he uses full names (Yogi Berra,
Chuck Stobbs) and adjectives like "tremendous drive.

"Yogi Berra on first. Mickey at bat with the count of no
strikes. Left-handed pitcher Chuck Stobbs on the mound. Mantle, a switch-hitter
batting right-handed, digs in the plate. Here's the pitch . . . Mantle swings. .
. there's a tremendous drive going into deep left field! It's going, going, it's
over the bleachers and over the sign atop of the bleachers into the yards of
houses across the street! It's got to be one of the longest home runs I've ever
seen hit. How about that! . . .we have just learned that Yankee publicity
director Red Patterson has gotten hold of a tape measure and he's going to go
out there to see how far that ball actually did go."

According to Marty Appel, the well known Yankee expert and
public relations man extraordinaire, "Red never got hold of a tape measure; he
walked it off with his size 11 shoes and estimated the distance."

Washington outfielders at Griffith Stadium never moved. Only
twice before had a ball ever been hit over the Griffith left-field wall - once
by Joe DiMaggio and once by Jimmy Foxx.

Their shots, however, bounced in the seats before clearing the
last barrier. Mantle's shot blasted toward left center, where the base of the
bleachers wall was 391 feet from the plate. The distance to the back of the wall
was sixty-nine feet more. A football scoreboard was atop Mickey blasted the ball
toward left center, where the base of the bleachers wall is 391 feet from the
plate.

The distance to the back of the wall is sixty-nine feet more and
then the back wall is fifth feet high. Atop that wall is a football scoreboard.
The ball struck about five feet above the wall, caromed off to the right and
flew out of sight.

Donald Dunaway, ten years-old, scrambled over the fence and was
the first to get to the ball. Close behind was Yankee publicity director Arthur
E. Patterson.

"Lookout!" Yankee third base coach Frank Crosetti, screamed at
Mantle. Billy Martin stayed at third base and pretended to tag up. Mickey ran
the bases with his head down and didn't notice Billy standing there and almost
ran him over."

"That was the hardest ball I ever saw hit," Martin complimented
his buddy. The ball was eventually recovered in the back yard of a house across
a major thoroughfare and four houses up a bisecting street, some 562 feet from
home plate.

Scuffed in two spots, the ball finally stopped in the backyard
of a house, about 565 feet from home plate. In one of the best trades in
baseball history, Patterson traded the Mantle home run ball for one dollar and
three new baseballs to be autographed by the Yankee players.

So was Mantle who said: "If I send the ball home, I know what
will happen to it. My twin brothers will take it out on the lot, like any
20-cent rocket."

Chuck Stobbs was not happy. "Mickey didn't get a hit every time
he faced me. I got him out a few times, too."

Yankees PR director Red Patterson was happy and also went into
the history books. He coined the term "tape measure home run" by measuring the
distance with a tape measure of that monster shot.

Mantle's shot may be the most famous home run ever hit. The
Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the longest home run to be measured
at the time it was hit.

WASHINGTON, APRIL 17 - RECORD HOMER
-- Smiling Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees, holds the ball he
socked for 565-feet today, the longest homerun ever hit in Griffith
Stadium here. Mickey points to the dent in the ball where it
hit a house after clearing centerfield in the game with the
Washington Senators. The Yankees won 7-3.

Fifty-five years after the fact, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports
smugly presented a
stunning indictment, with help from his expert witness,
author Bill Jenkinson, that the 565’ blast by Mickey Mantle on
April 17th, 1953 at Griffith Stadium is merely a myth and could
not possibly have traveled that far. The prosecution’s
entire case rests on this flimsy, circumstantial evidence; 1)
the fact that Donald Dunaway (the boy who found the ball) can
not be located 55 years later, 2) that Yankees PR man, Red
Patterson never actually measured the ball with a tape measure
and 3) the fact that the prosecution feels that nobody could
ever hit a ball as hard or as far as the great Babe Ruth.
The defense plans to convincingly dispute each of these pieces
of evidence.

Defense opening statement: The defense wishes to clearly
state that it acknowledges Babe Ruth as the greatest baseball
player in the history of the game. Unlike the
prosecution, we are in no way going to challenge the distances
of balls that Babe Ruth hit during his tremendous career.
Even though none of the material witnesses are with us today
(they are on Heaven’s team now), we plan to present well
documented written testimony from multiple people who actually
witnessed Mickey’s home run in question on April 17, 1953. We
intend to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the home run in
question was, and still is, the longest measured home run in the
history of the game.

Oddly enough, the only material witness that Jeff Passan seems
interested in is Donald Dunaway. In Passan’s article, he
states that even though Red Patterson admitted that he did not
actually measure the homer with a tape measure (he stepped off
the distance), he never wavered from his story that Donald
Dunaway found the ball. Passan issues an objection that
because Mr. Dunaway can not be found today, he didn’t exist in
1953 and therefore his “testimony” is hearsay. That is
hardly evidence that the homer didn’t land 565’ from home plate.
Objection overruled.

The prosecution also claims that Mickey's blast could not have
gone 565' because it was not precisely measured. The
defense objects on the grounds that, prior to this home run, no
home run ball in the history of the game had ever been precisely
measured. Yet, people still insist that Babe Ruth's blast
traveled specific distances and nobody has ever questioned them.
At least in this case, Red Patterson did something never done
before and that was to measure the distance in steps which was a
widely accepted and common means of measuring distance at that
time. Objection sustained.

Let’s review the facts that are agreed to by both the
prosecution and the defense:

1) The ball definitely did carry completely out of the confines
of Griffith Stadium.
2) The ball glanced off the National Bohemian Beer sign which
was 460’ feet from home plate and 55’ off the ground.
3) There was a wind blowing out of the stadium that day.

The defense would now like to introduce Exhibits A, B and C to
the jury:

Exhibit A – The day after the home run blast, an article
appeared in The Washington Post titled,
“Ruth Never Slugged A Baseball Farther”. The
opening paragraph of the article read, “MICKEY MANTLE’S home
run in the fifth inning was the first drive ever to clear the
55-foot high left field bleachers at Griffith Stadium since they
were built in 1924. Veteran New York baseball writers
agreed that Babe Ruth never hit a ball farther.”

Exhibit B - An article titled, “Home Run Big Guns –
From Ruth to Mantle”, appeared in the July 1953 edition
of Baseball Magazine which stated, “Red
Patterson, public relations officer of the New York Yankees,
dashed in pursuit. He found the ball in possession of ten-year
old Don Dunaway, who pointed out the spot where he'd retrieved
the leather. Patterson's measurement of the gaudy blast was 565
feet. Later, the calculations were reviewed by Cal Griffith,
vice president of the Senators, who made it 562 feet.”

Thus, Red Patterson was not the only person to have calculated
the distance. Cal Griffith, the vice president of the
Senators, did his own analysis and determined the home run to
have traveled 562’.
Keep in mind that
Red Patterson might have reason to exaggerate since he worked
for the Yankees– but Mr. Griffith?

Exhibit C
– An article titled,“As High and Far as Ruth”,
appeared in the July 1956 Baseball Digest which
stated, “The late Clark Griffith, a Yankee hater from far
back, paid Mantle complete, if grudging, tribute for the ball he
hit completely out of the park in left center in 1953 in
Griffith Stadium. ‘Maybe the wind did help him,’ Griffith said,
‘but that wind has been blowing off and on for 51 years out here
and nobody else ever put one over that fence.’”

We would like to pose this question to the jury - Is it merely a
coincidence that the prosecution waited fifty-five years to make
their indictment against Mickey Mantle when there are no living
witnesses that can counter their claims? Or is it just out
of convenience? Although Passan states that only 4,206
fans attended that historic game on April 17, 1953, fortunately,
there were at least two people present on the field that day who
had witnessed both Mickey’s blast and long homers hit by the
great Babe Ruth – Yankee coaches Bill Dickey and Frank Crosetti.
While Crosetti only witnessed the Babe’s last three years on the
Yankees, Dickey witnessed seven years (half of Babe’s Yankee
career). The defense would like to present testimony from these
actual witnesses.

The defense now calls Bill Dickey to the stand to hear his
testimony that was published in multiple magazines over the
years that he coached with the Yankees:

June 1956 Newsweek: Bill Dickey describing Mickey
Mantle - "I thought when I was playing with Ruth and [Lou]
Gehrig I was seeing all I was ever gonna see. But this kid… Ruth
and Gehrig had power, but I've seen Mickey hit seven balls,
seven, so far ... well, I've never seen nothing like it."

July 1956 Baseball Digest – “The home runs he
[Mantle] hits are not only Ruthian in quality, sometimes they're
farther than the late Babe's. Bill Dickey, the Yankee coach who
played with Ruth, almost said after the opening game that Mantle
could hit a ball farther. Then he amended it, and said: ‘Put it
this way: Ruth could hit a ball awful high and awful far. Mickey
can hit it just as high and just as far.’”

1961 Complete Sports – “Most of his
tape-measure homers (450 feet or better) had been hit righty.
The grand daddy of them all was the 565-footer over the left
field bleachers in Washington on April 17, 1953. That is the
longest fair ball ever recorded by actual measurement. Two weeks
later, he hit one (again righty) out of St. Louis' Sportsmans
Park, (now Busch Stadium), which measured 512 feet. Those two
convinced Dickey, then a Yankee coach and former teammate of
both Ruth and Gehrig. ‘Mickey can hit a ball further than the
Babe,’ he said, refusing to let his fealty to Ruth cloud his
honest appraisal of the pair of all-time greats.”

July 1962 Great Moments In Sports: Referring to
Mickey’s 565’ blast in Washington in 1953 - “Clark Griffith,
Bucky Harris, Casey Stengel and Bill Dickey, who'd seen 'em all
in the era of the lively ball, agreed it was the longest drive
in the history of the game. ‘I never thought I would live to see
a man who could hit a baseball as far as Ruth,’ said the
awe-struck Dickey. ‘But now I've seen a man who could hit 'em
further.’"

The defense would now like to call our second witness, Frank
Crosetti, to the stand:

January 1964 Sports Calvacade – Commenting on
Mickey’s façade shot in 1963 - “FRANK CROSETTI: ‘That's the
hardest I've ever seen anyone hit a ball. Foxx, Ruth, anybody.
I don't believe a man can hit a ball any harder. It went
out like it was shot out of a cannon.’"

The defense would like to call our third and final witness,
Casey Stengel. Stengel played during the same era as Babe Ruth.
Let’s hear testimony from Stengel, that we believe is actually
on point and easy to understand:

The defense believes that no further testimony is necessary and
therefore the defense rests.

Defense closing argument: So whose evidence is more convincing?
Mr. Passan’s evidence which is less than even circumstantial or
that of Bill Dickey, Frank Crosetti, Casey Stengel, Red
Patterson, Cal Griffith, Clark Griffith and numerous other
experts of that time? It seems the answer is clear.
The ball DID travel between 562’ and 565’, and, had it not
glanced off the beer sign, it would have surely traveled even
further.

Since the prosecution has failed to prove the facts necessary to
sustain an indictment of this magnitude, we believe that their
case should be dismissed. The only real question remaining is
whether Passan and Jenkinson have engaged in an unprofessional
and malicious prosecution and are therefore guilty of
irresponsible journalism? We think the verdict should be clear
on this issue and the penalty should be up to the baseball fans.
So there you have it baseball fans. Forget about the
steroid controversy that no one seems to care about – this is
the real baseball trial of the century. You be the judge and the
jury.

This article can be found at:
http://www.mickeymantle.com/insights.htm#Mickeys Historic Homer
On Trial!